Tender Prey
by Juliette Louise
Summary: Post-Game. On a tip from Liara, Shepard and Thane go to a remote research outpost to investigate Prothean ruins. An old enemy is waiting for them.
1. A Hunter

_So in my first Mass Effect effort ("The Sea") I mentioned Shepard and Thane visiting Prothean ruins and deserts, and getting into trouble..._

* * *

Normandy's airlock slid open smoothly, and as always, Shepard's ears popped. No amount of pressure equalization ever did anything for it. Also, bright sunlight almost blinded her.

Haraji was the only inhabited planet in the binary Indira system. It was an unusual system in that its main-sequence star, Ira, had drawn a rogue white-dwarf, Sahi, into orbit around itself. It was theorized that this was why the Protheans had abandoned their settlement there. Abruptly their world would have gone from lush and tropical to arid, with spikes in temperature and radiation every time Sahi came around.

Shepard brought a hand up to shield her eyes, and looked over at Thane. He had his hands clasped behind his back, but when she looked at his face she noticed that the nictitating membranes over his eyes were closed against the glare. They made his normally glossy black eyes milky blue. It was moments like this that reminded her that he was indeed a member of an obscure race from the opposite arm of the Milky Way.

Rather than being perturbed, Shepard found it...intriguing. For one thing, they were never at a loss for conversation. There was always something new to learn.

Thane gave her one of his rare smiles and hopped off the platform.

"I told you it would be perfect." She said, handing him their bags (one for guns, the other for everything else, as usual), then taking his proffered hand, stepped down herself.

"I never doubted you, _Siha_."

Shepard sighed deeply, taking in the surroundings. The only settlements on Haraji were research stations, but their scientists were well-entrenched and well-funded, and were making the best of Haraji's climate. Rift Station, as it was called, was half-sank into a sheer rock face. There were a few deck chairs scattered around, and they'd even dug themselves a pool.

The planet was actually quite beautiful, in a desolate way. It was all jutting cliffs and sandy vistas, interspersed with scrub-grassy plains. At the moment it wasn't sweltering, and a pleasant breeze was blowing, but Sahi was also tucked safely behind her more friendly sister Ira.

Thane hesitantly put an arm around her, his hand coming to rest on her hip-bone. It had been many years since his hands had done anything but kill people, and it was as though he was only just remembering how to do anything else.

Shepard felt similarly. She was in the Alliance military for ten years, after all, getting sharpened into a weapon, and all their training didn't exactly fade away over night.

But they were learning quickly.

Shepard looked around the empty launch-pad and the still desert, one hand still shielding her eyes.

"It's not exactly Illium, but after the last few months..." She didn't have to finish the thought.

"I agree completely." Thane said.

-

After the Collectors were destroyed, the crew of the Normandy stayed together for a time, but eventually individual interests split them up.

Jack and Zaeed bailed almost immediately, off to do...whatever it was that those two did for fun. It seemed that they'd forged an unlikely partnership and were likely about to be up to no good together.

Grunt went back to Tuchanka, eager to accept the offers made by the females of Clan Urdnot after he felled their thresher maw.

Miranda and Jacob, of course, still worked directly under the Illusive Man and were at his beck and call. They left on some secret assignment a few days after the Normandy came back through the Omega 4 relay.

Samara was by her own admission never content to stay in one place for too long, and left a few days after them.

Mordin, Garrus, and Tali stayed the longest, and the remaining crew spent several long nights in the mess hall reminiscing about past adventures and accomplishments before they, too, departed. Legion tagged along with Mordin, as eager to see somewhere besides the inside of a spaceship as Mordin was to have his own AI assistant.

Joker and the rest of the Cerberus team stayed, of course, since the Illusive Man made it clear that Shepard's services would be required again sometime in the future. But she'd made it just as clear that this theoretical future had better be a long way off.

They'd been kicking around the galaxy for awhile, running little assignments for people, prospecting, and tinkering with the ship, but they rapidly ran out of things to do. In any case it didn't seem correct for the most advanced Human vessel in history to be chasing around on errands at 500 credits per liter of fuel.

So Shepard sent the Normandy to the Citadel for refits on the Tantalus drive, and went on vacation.

She put her hand to her ear. "Ok, Joker. I'll see you in a week."

"You got it, boss." Joker's voice crackled over her ear-piece. "Stay outta trouble."

They moved to a safe distance and watched Normandy's boosters fire. She lifted-off smoothly and nearly silently. She shrank to a glimmer in the thin atmosphere, and there was a faint rumble as she went to FTL.

-

Rift Station had a room set aside for them. Like every research facility she'd seen, the personal quarters were sparse and functional. There was a bed, a desk, and not much else in the way of furnishings. The centerpiece of the room was a huge window that looked out over the desert. The sun was waning now, and the landscape was bathed in orange light.

Thane surveyed the room briefly, then stepped up onto the window-sill, perching there with effortless grace, hands on his knees.

"I've been a long time in cities and starships, my _Siha_." He murmured, his deep voice moving the air of the room strangely. (She loved his voice. When she was against his chest and he spoke she could feel it vibrating through her down to her fingertips. She even disconnected her translation matrix once to hear the Drell tongue as it was really spoken; it reminded her of a recording of an Australian didgeridoo she'd heard once.)

Shepard didn't have to respond. He knew how many nights she'd spent lying on military cots staring at metal walls.

Suddenly Thane was beside her, his hand hovering on the small of her back. She stepped into his arms.

-

Shepard woke because her lap-top was blinking at her. The blue light blinded her momentarily, and for an instant she thought they were back in her quarters on the Normandy, under the soothing cerulean glow of her fishtank.

Beside her, Thane's breathing was deep and even; the desert air was agreeing with him. She carefully extricated herself from tangled bedclothes, then looked around in the near-darkness for garments. It wasn't an e-mail waiting for her, someone was actually wanting to speak with her _right now_. She finally located a robe.

Shepard cast another glance at Thane. He was on his side, facing where she'd until-recently been lying, the hard lines of his face made softer by sleep.

She crept out of the room. The researchers' quarters were arranged like dorms, with all the rooms arranged off of a long hallway. Shepard sat against the wall, pulling her robes tighter around herself, and opened her laptop.

To her surprise, it was neither the Illusive Man or a Hanar geneticist, but Liara T'Soni.

"Shepard! It's good to see you." Liara smiled broadly, and for a moment Shepard could see the happier woman she'd once been.

"Liara! It's good to see _you_. You're the last person I expected to hear from."

Liara was in her office on Illium, Shepard could see the thin skyscrapers of the city behind her.

"I've heard that you're on Haraji."

Shepard couldn't help but laugh. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

Liara shrugged, but still looked pleased with herself. "It is my job now to know everything."

"I'm here on a vacation, of sorts. I was hoping to see the Prothean ruins here. I've heard these are some of the most complete in the galaxy."

"You've heard correctly. That's why I've contacted you."

Shepard sighed. No one ever contacted her just to say hello.

"...And I've heard rumors that there is a functional Prothean cipher on Haraji." Liara continued.

"Wait...the ciphers are artifacts? I thought they were only collections of thought."

"The ciphers are a...what's that human expression? A Rosetta Stone of sorts. They are objects in the way that the beacons are. They pour their knowledge directly into your psyche, and from there it can be shared and passed on, at least if your mind is sufficiently compatible."

Shepard shuddered involuntarily. She still wondered occasionally if she would someday go spectacularly insane from containing the Prothean beacon in her decidedly "incompatible" mind.

"If the researchers at Rift Station locate a cipher, it's entirely possible that they won't even know what it is. Just keep your eyes open, Shepard, that's all I'm asking."

"I'm supposed to go out to the site with the research team early tomorrow morning. I'll keep a eye out for it."

Liara looked around her office furtively. She was blushing. "One more thing, Shepard..."

"Of course."

"Is it true what they say about the Drell? With the hallucinogenic...?"

"Pheromones, yes."

"Shepard!" She giggled.

"I'm becoming acclimatized to it, thankfully. In the last few weeks I've gone from communing with Amonkira to the walls breathing faintly after every sexual encounter."

Liara was blushing furiously. "I...well, glad to hear it, Shepard. Update me if you see anything on the dig tomorrow." Liara's image went to static, and Shepard closed her laptop.

The door behind her clicked open, and Thane's face appeared around the door. He looked both sleepy and confused.

"_Siha,_ why are you in the hall talking about the Drell lord of the hunt?"

-

The communication went to static, and Nyxeris carefully extracted her program and cut the connection.

"Did you get all of that?" She asked into her ear-piece. Of course he did. That was why she was so well paid.

"Yes. Thank you, Sir. Good hunting."


	2. The Quarry

Bright light woke her. It was streaming through the enormous picture window, cutting a path through the shadows of the room. Shepard sat up, again shielding her eyes from the glare.

Thane sat on the floor in the sunlight, feet tucked under himself, hands resting in his lap, eyes gently closed. He was shirtless, and Shepard's eyes were drawn to the collection of scars that disturbed the smooth skin of his arm and back, and the trail of markings that started at the base of his skull and slid down his spine.

Thane's eyes slid open. He stood in a smooth movement, and closed the blinds.

"I'm sorry, _Siha_. I didn't mean to wake you."

He sat on the bed and took her hands. Always touching her hands when they spoke was a mannerism of his that she found both strange and endearing.

"No, it's alright." She said, then stopped. His facial expressions could be incredibly subtle, but she knew him well enough to see that he was upset.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

He relinquished her hands and stood, arms crossed over his chest, facing the window.

"I think I'll stay behind. I want to write to my son. There are things I would tell him."

Shepard didn't ask. Kolyat was still a painful topic for him.

"Of course." She said, standing. Abruptly he turned and kissed her fiercely, drawing her against him. His skin still felt warm from when he sat in the sunlight.

"I'll be back in a few hours," She said, searching his face.

He only nodded. "Of course, my _Siha_. I'll be here."

-

Shepard was outside lacing up her boots when the researchers appeared. The facility was small, with only eleven permanent residents. They were a mixed lot, three Human women, two Salarians, and six Turians from their government's science bureau. Haraji was technically in Turian space, and since the attack on the Citadel they had taken rather a vested interest in the ruins here.

"Good morning, Commander Shepard!" Nina Franks said, extending a weathered hand. They'd had a short conversation the day before, when they arrived at the facility. She was a stout, older woman with long grey hair and a kind face. Definitely the de-facto leader of this little band of archaeologists. Shepard had gotten the impression that when the Turians sent their people to Haraji they'd intended to usurp her, but with no success.

"But of course you're used to the early mornings from the Alliance, huh?" Nina thumped her on the back a few times for emphasis. She was almost alarmingly friendly.

The two other women were younger, more or less her age, and looked embarrassed at Nina's slight breach of protocol. One of them came forward.

"I'm Elaine, and this is Sara." They both shook her hand, looking vaguely frightened.

Indeed, the whole team introduced themselves, and all of them looked at her like she could potentially snap and kill them all at any second. Considering that she was now both a SpecTRe and technically a Cerberus operative, she didn't exactly blame them.

The dig site was only over the next rise, and they all loaded into two dusty utility vehicles. One of the Turians drove, and Nina shouted over her shoulder at her from the front seat, holding her hat to her head so it wouldn't fly off in the wind.

"I don't know how much you've heard, Shepard, but this is truly one of the best preserved Prothean sites in the galaxy. It's the only Prothean settlement we know of that was abandoned before their extinction. They left quite a lot behind. Dwellings, furniture, cooking items, tech."

"Oh yes?" She shouted back over the noise of the vehicle.

"Unfortunately most of it's under 50 meters feet of sand. We've uncovered the equivalent of about three city blocks."

"I'm excited to see it." Shepard said, legitimately pleased. It would be nice to learn about the Protheans without dozens of people trying to kill her. For years now she'd been running through archaeological sites with no time for anything but shooting and ducking and bleeding.

"I'm impressed, Commander! Most military types don't exactly get excited over this sort of thing."

"Yeah, well. I'm not in the military anymore." Shepard said, then they passed over a small dune and she became distracted.

Prothean towers like she'd seen on Feros reached out of a huge...opening...in the desert, reinforced by pre-fab walls. Inside, the bright Haraji sunlight illuminated Prothean architecture, some of which looked to be at least two stories tall.

They pulled up to the edge of the dig, and unloaded themselves and their gear. Shepard was overawed. Maybe Liara was right. If ever a working cipher would be discovered, this seemed like a likely place. The shifting sands must have covered this site only a few hundred years after the Protheans deserted it, preserving it from the elements.

They all loaded into the elevator, and Inido, a Salarian, hit the controls.

Creaking, the elevator lowered them slowly through the old settlement. Through huge holes in the crumbling walls, she could see what could have been furnishings, objects that might have been art. This was the most...personal evidence of the Protheans she had ever seen. They'd always seemed more mythical than real.

The elevator reached the bottom. Her boots crunched under the same gravel that once Protheans had stood on.

"My God," Shepard said, looking up. Sunlight filtered through the buildings, casting strange patterns of light on the researchers and the floor.

"How long have these ruins been under excavation?" She said.

"I never thought you would be the academic sort, Shepard." Someone said, but it wasn't Nina. Shepard's hand hovered over her belt, but of course her gun wasn't there.

She turned, and finally placed the voice.

It was Balak, and behind him, at least 20 of his closest friends. There were enough of them that they had the research team surrounded and still had a few left over to point guns at her.

Shepard carefully modulated her voice. "I let you live the last time we met, and this is how you repay me?" She said. He'd actually gotten away from her twice now. Once seven years ago at Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz, and again five years later when she'd ruined his plans to sink an asteroid into Terra Nova.

Balak laughed.

"Don't act like you had a choice, Shepard. It was me or a big pile of dead civilians on your conscience, and we all knew what the _heroic _Commander Shepard, Humanity's favorite daughter, would pick. As I understand it, they put up a statue of you on Terra Nova the _last_ time somebody was lucky enough to kill you."

Behind him, one of the researchers started crying, and abruptly, she realized the seriousness of the situation. She had no weapons, no armor, and there were eleven untrained civilians to worry about. Balak and his men were Batarians, twice her size, heavily armed, and holding a grudge.

"Let them go, Balak. I'll go wherever you want, you don't need leverage."

Balak laughed again.

"I didn't become the leader I am by not learning my lessons. I'm not taking you prisoner, Shepard. We're going to go across the site to where I've arranged for you and your friends to die in a tragic accident involving one of the site's retaining walls collapsing. By the time the Alliance realizes that you've also been shot, I'll be back beyond the Attican Traverse."

Shepard wasn't really listening to him. She was taking stock. No weapons, no armor. What _did_ she have on her? She was still wearing her jacket from the Normandy, but there was nothing in her pockets. Then she felt something against her collarbone. Of course! An ear-piece was wired into her jacket. She'd worn it when she was going after Samara's daughter on Omega Station, and radioed Joker with it when they arrived on Haraji. Right now it was dangling between her jacket and her shirt.

Shepard made a show of nonchalance, putting one hand on her hip and the other on her chest.

"Really, Balak, I'm flattered that you hold my abilities is in such high esteem, but you have twenty men with you. You don't need the civilians, and regardless of what they've seen, by the time help arrives I'll be dead and you'll be long gone."

She felt the tiny ear-piece under her ring-finger. It clicked as she pressed its tinier call button.

"No! No more talking!" Balak said abruptly. "Put your hands on your head. You, frisk her."

One of Balak's lieutenants made a show of searching her for weapons as roughly as possible.

"She's clean." He said finally, stepping away.

"You're an idiot, Shepard. So many enemies and you come out here without a weapon."

She resisted the urge to smirk. Obviously, they'd never heard of Thane.


	3. The Assassin, Part I

_"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."--Arnida Hyksos, Kahje Assassin's Guild_

_

* * *

  
_

Thane sat at the tiny desk for a long time, in front of Shepard's laptop, even after he sent his message off to Kolyat.

He told him everything. His recruitment to Shepard's team on Illium, the lead-up to their meeting on the Citadel, and fight against the Collectors. Thane wasn't prideful about his accomplishments, but he wanted his son to know that redemption was always within reach.

He spoke about Irikah. When she went to the sea, Kolyat was only a child, with a child's understanding. Thane told him the same story he'd told Shepard, about when she stepped in between him and his target. How he saw her in the cross-hairs of his scope and wondered what kind of woman was willing to trade her life for a stranger's.

She had an innate goodness, a purity, that he'd also seen in Kolyat when he was a child.

_(Hands reach up toward him. "I found this!" It's a rock with a fossilized seashell in it. Kolyat looks like he'll burst with excitement. "It's very nice. What will you do with it?" His son only laughs, and already his laugh sounds like Irikah's. "I found it for _you_, daddy!") _

For ten years he'd lived in terror that the darkness and pain and death in the universe would snuff that out. Ruin his son like he felt for so long he'd been ruined.

With any luck, he'd saved him from that, and in the process saved himself. Which brought him to the present.

Thane slid back onto the ground, into the pool of light. He took a deep breath and released it, settling into a meditative position. His spirit reached for stillness that his mind could not grant.

When Irikah was taken from him the pain was indescribable. He walked around for years almost in a trance, wanting nothing but the sound of her voice and the touch of her hands.

It was not a feeling he wanted to share with his _Siha_, but he had entered into a relationship with her fully aware that he had a terminal illness. She was still young—barely a third into her potential lifespan. He would leave her, as Irikah had left him. Guilt wracked him, and there was no respite from it.

_("Be alive with me." She says, laying a warm hand on his face. He turns into her touch for a moment, so needful of her comfort. But then his mind starts working again, and he catches her wrist, more roughly than he'd intended. "I can't let this happen, _Siha_. I'm dying." But of course it had happened already.)_

Then there was a tiny _snap-hiss_, and in the stillness of the room it sounded like an explosion.

Thane was on his feet in an instant. The facility was completely empty except for him. He turned his concentration on the sound, and it became clearer. Radio chatter, so low it was barely audible. The laptop was not to blame, the intercom on their wall was silent. Thane froze. His jacket.

His handlers on Kahje had made the prototype reactive armor jacket especially for him. Its material was flexible when it moved slowly, but when it was compressed by an impact, its molecules locked together, spreading the blow over a wider area. The Cerberus team had been quite impressed with it, and wired his radio directly in. Fear slid down his spine. She wouldn't turn on her radio unless there was trouble.

His jacket was slung over a chair. The tiny device dangled from its collar. Thane put his face close and listened.

"...your han...head. You, frisk..."

It was an unfamiliar male voice, but the signal was very muffled.

"...idiot, Shepard...enemies...come out here without a..."

He was instantly in motion. He threw on a shirt, then his jacket. He threw the duffel bag onto their bed and pulled out his Mantis sniper rifle, and two Carnifax hand-cannons, and a handful of heat-sink cartridges.

Judging from how little he could hear, her ear-piece was inside her clothing somewhere, maybe in a pocket.

"You can get away with killing me, Balak, but if you murder all these scientists, the Turians are going to come down on you like a goddamned..."

Dr. T'Soni had a leak in her office somewhere, or she had sold Shepard out herself. But he would deal with her betrayal later. In the meantime, she was unarmed and this Balak was a notorious slaver and terrorist, with a personal grudge against her and eleven civilians to use as leverage.

_Arashu, guide my hand. May my aim be true. Protect her as you protected your children from the storm. And Amonkira, let her abductors fall by my hand. I'm coming, _Siha.

-

Balak led her across the dig-site, poking her in the back occasionally with his pistol for emphasis.

"...Turians are pretty goddamnned scary when they're mad, Balak."

"Shut up, Shepard! I don't care if the whole Turian fleet comes after me. You need to die, and I need to kill you. And your little friends are going with you. Move!"

Thankfully it was difficult to herd eleven near-hysterical people effectively. The facility was only a few minutes away on foot, and it was possible to see everything that was going on from above, but there was only one point of entry that she was aware of.

Eventually they arrived. This was the most recently excavated part of the site, and therefore the best place for an "accident". Cases of equipment were scattered around, and the huge generator for the archaeologists' lights and tech was against a retaining wall. Balak had stuck about fifteen pounds of explosives to it. He wasn't one for subtlety.

Balak's lieutenant that had frisked her earlier was prodding her into the center of the intersection. One of the human girls was sobbing loudly. For the first time since Balak had appeared, she was really nervous. She scanned the ruins, but there were no darting shadows, no scopes glimmering in the sunlight. And time seemed to be up.

The lieutenant put his pistol against her temple.

"On your knees, please, Shepard." Balak said, casually. He crossed his arms over his chest and settled in for the show.

Shepard drew a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Time seemed to slow, as it often did in these moments. Shepard exhaled slowly, and as her first knee touched the ground, the lieutenant's head turned into a fine red mist. Her hand shot out, pulling the pistol from the dead Batarian's hand even before he fell.

Shepard dove for cover behind a crate. There was a second _crack_ from the sniper rifle and another Batarian fell.

"Go! Run!" Shepard screamed at the archaeological team. They scattered. One of Balak's men turned and aimed after them, but there was a third report from the rifle and he fell over into the sand.

For a few moments there was utter pandemonium. No one could figure out what direction the sniper was firing from. Even Balak had disappeared behind something.

She shoved her ear-piece back into her ear.

"Thane!"

"I'm here, _Siha._" His deep voice was measured, utterly calm.

Shepard looked at the pistol she'd taken off of the Batarian. She had twelve heat-sink rounds and there were seventeen men left.

"Can you see the researchers?" She said. Balak's men were now firing indiscriminately into the ruins.

"Yes. Heading for the elevator."

"Cover them. I'll draw Balak toward the other side."

"_Siha_!"

"Go!"

There was a long beat of silence.

"As you wish." He said, finally.

* * *

_I'm sorry to leave you hanging, really! This segment was just getting to be too long for a single chapter. Quote re-purposed from Ernest Hemingway. _


	4. The Assassin, Part II

Thane threaded his way silently through the ruins toward the research team. They were easy enough to find. When he dropped out of the ceiling behind them the oldest one, the Human woman, shrieked and very nearly gave away their position.

"There's no time to explain. I'm with Shepard. I'll come with you to the elevator, but we must hurry."

They ran through the dig-site and Thane followed them, but as he suspected, the moment they lost Shepard the researchers became a moot point.

He pushed the call button to bring the elevator back down, and loaded the researchers on.

"Civilians are away." He said into his radio. "What's your position?"

"Almost to the opposite side of the..."

He heard the popping of gunfire from across the site then a split-second later over the radio. He took off running toward it, shouldering his sniper rifle in favor of a pistol.

"Shit! Three more down." She hissed.

"I'm closing in from the left. Stay low."

"I can't. They're right on top of me." She was taking increasingly heavy fire as they centered in on her position.

"Then pull them towards me." He said, sprinting through the ruins. Abruptly, the gunfire stopped, and he knew he was getting close. They'd heard him. He dove for cover as they turned their attention from her to him.

"Now! Move!" He said.

Thane finally saw her as she darted out from behind cover. One of Balak's men appeared from behind a crate and took aim at her, exposing himself long enough for Thane to pick him off. Twelve left.

Shepard slid into the space beside him, kicking up a cloud of dust. She was covered in grit and blood, and to his surprise, was grinning widely.

"Just like old times, huh?" She laughed.

"_Siha!_ You're injured!"

She looked down at herself. "Ah, well. Most of this isn't mine. I ran out of heat-sinks two Batarians ago."

He felt his lips twisting into a smile. "And to think, I was worried about you."

Her face turned more serious. "You were right to worry. Thanks for the rescue."

He gave her a little bow. "My pleasure."

A few rounds slamming into the wall in front of them brought him back to the moment. He handed her her Carnifax and a handful of heat-sinks. She tossed the stolen pistol away.

"Thank the Maker," she muttered.

Thane took a deep breath and pulled a ball of dark energy into his hand. It tingled against his fingertips and cooled the air around them slightly. They'd found a few creative ways to use his biotics against enemies in their campaign against the Collectors, but this one was probably his personal favorite.

"Shall we dance?" He said, grinning.

"Please," she said, waving him forward.

He waited until there was a break of the gun-fire, then arced the biotic field around their cover. There was a crash and three Batarians flew out from behind their cover, screaming. Shepard fired three rounds rapid-fire, and they kept moving, back toward the elevator.

Eight left, plus Balak. But now Thane had all his cards on the table. He lashed out with biotics and his Carnifax, and his _Siha_ covered him. They moved in tandem in that way that people often did who both killed together and shared a bed.

They slid back into cover with four hostiles left.

"Surrender, Balak! It's over. Don't waste your life." Shepard shouted over the top of a crate.

There was a long moment of silence, then four Batarians came out very slowly from behind a wall, tossing their weapons and putting their hands in the air. None of them were Balak.

"Where the hell is he?" She said. Thane had his Carnifax trained on all of them.

"Where the _HELL_ is he?" She asked them again, louder.

"We don't know!" The bravest one said, and abruptly they all felt the familiar shudder as a vessel went to FTL.

"Well, shit." Shepard said, looking skyward.


	5. Field Work

They put the four remaining Batarians in the basement of the facility until a Turian frigate arrived to pick them up. Shepard gave a statement, but not because she was obligated to—SpecTRe's were more-or-less above debriefings of any sort

When she contacted Liara, T'Soni told her that her personal assistant, Nyxeris, has quit abruptly and apparently skipped Illium. When Shepard told her about the ambush, she did some digging. Her sources concerning the Prothean cipher were very probably connected to the Shadow Broker.

The next three days they spent inside, since Ira had come around to face them and the temperature became rapidly unbearable.

Thane got a message back from Kolyat, after which he spent a great deal of time meditating. The facility had climate control, but it was having trouble keeping up. Shepard stripped down to her underclothes and laid down, content for the moment to watch the ceiling fan go around and around. She had just started to doze off when he stood. It was another gorgeous sunset on Haraji, the slightly-elevated radiation levels turning the sunset shades of blue and purple.

Shepard lifted herself up onto her elbows. The waning light from the window cast patterns over her bare legs and arms, and over Thane, who stood in the window, looking out over the sand.

"I told Kolyat about you." His voice was totally neutral, but he put his hands on the sill and leaned into it like he was very tired. He let out a long, shuddering sigh. Silence stretched out between them for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet.

"For a long time I've felt selfish for loving you, _Siha_. I was fearful that the comfort you're giving me in the last months of my life is at your expense. But there's something I hadn't considered."

Shepard's throat suddenly felt too raw to speak. The words "last months" felt like a physical blow. But Thane continued.

"I hadn't considered that you may need me, as well. It's been a long time since I was needed by anyone."

"And what does Kolyat think?" She found her voice again, but only just barely.

To her surprise, when he turned to her he was smiling.

"He understands. In fact, it seems an aide from the Asari Embassy has taken a shine to him. He asked for my advice. Since I'm not a 'monk' anymore, as he put it, I'm apparently qualified to answer. I'll tell him to be careful with his heart, but not to let fear hold him back. And I think I'll take my own advice."

Thane crossed the room, his footfalls silent. He took her hands as he always did, but this time she pulled him over into bed.

Shepard tucked herself in between his arm and body, one hand on his chest. His skin always felt cool to her, and smooth like snake-skin.

"I love you. And I do need you." Shepard said. "And not just for your ability to make my enemies' heads pop from 300 yards."

He actually laughed. "But you enjoy that as well."

She kissed his neck, and he shivered, his fingers kneading her back.

"We're stuck in here for two days. What are we gonna do with ourselves?" Shepard said.

"I can think of some things," Thane rumbled.

She sat up on her elbow, surprised. He smiled crookedly up at her.

"I love you, _Siha. _Nothing will stop me from doing so."

Shepard straddled him.

"Good. Then you won't object to what I'm about to do to you."

-

Shepard stepped up to the galaxy map, working a kink out of her shoulder.

"Where to now, boss?" Kelly Chambers looked up from her laptop.

Shepard's fingers danced over the hard-light representation of the Milky Way.

"I was thinking about a nice trip to the Attican Traverse." She cracked her knuckles.

"I have an appointment with someone named Balak."

* * *

_Alright, everybody! This was the last instalment of _"Tender Prey"_. Thanks so much for all of your wonderful reviews. They mean so much to me! I do have two questions for you. _

_Question 1: I was debating writing a story that takes place after "_The Sea"_ in which Thane is resurrected by the Lazarus Project to help the Illusive Man root out the Shadow Broker. Should I do it, or is that too weird? Does it take away from the impact of everything else? _

_Question 2: I've deliberately avoided using Shepard's first name or a description of her, because of course everybody's Shepard is different. Good? Bad? Should I continue with this or name and describe Shep in future?_

_Thanks for the input everybody!_


End file.
